Posted on 11/18/2009 6:12:25 AM PST by shortstop
It's a death sentence.
Our first taste of Obamacare -- the government as the arbitrer of what health care we do and don't need -- will kill thousands of women.
It is a death list by another name.
A federal task force has declared that for most women mammograms are unnecessary before the age of 50 and should only be administered every other year after that. Further, breast self-exams are no longer recommended.
In a fight with a horrific disease in which early detection is the most-effective tool, America's women have been told by their government to forget about it.
Previous recommendations, based on years of experience and analysis, were for most women to begin annual mammograms at age 40 and to perform monthly breast self-exams starting at puberty. Countless thousands of women's lives have been saved by following that prudent, simple process.
The discovery of a lump or a mammogram anomoly led to further testing and treatment, and that jump on fighting cancer in many instances saved lives. Without that jump on the disease, it is an incontrovertable fact that women will die.
According to the federal government, however, that's OK.
Apparently there is some threshold at which unnecessary death is acceptable.
At least in the mind of the bureaucracy that is about to be put in charge of the nation's health care. The folks who want health care reform have tipped their hand with this first insight into rationing.
How will the government reduce the cost of health care? By allowing less of it. The savings in this new pronouncement alone are staggering. A good portion of an entire health-care industry has been swept away. Most women in their 40s are no longer going to be patients of breast-care clinics, and all the women over 40 are only going to go half as often. As much as 70 percent of the American mammography market just dried up.
Clinics will close, specialists will be diverted to other diseases, jobs will be lost.
And money will be saved.
The federal government, in an interesting coincidence, will pay out far less in Medicaid and new "public option" money.
But, unavoidably, people will have to die. Because it is a fact that each year women in their 40s have their breast cancer discovered in a routine mammograms. And it is also a fact that each year women or their husbands discover bumps which are breast cancer. And a certain percentage of women over 50 will have their tumors grow another entire year before they are discovered -- with the consequent deterioration of their condition.
And why? Why is it that the federal panel has taken this big sea change?
Because of the anxiety and inconvenience caused by false positives.
Seriously. Women who have an unusual mammogram, and have to come back for a sonogram or biopsy, end worrying about it. And that worry is a bad thing.
Of course, so is dying.
Further, there is the inconvenience of performing tests to verify the possibility of cancer.
Anxiety and convenience. According to the government, those are the reasons. At least the ones they will say out loud. Because the fact is that eliminating these life-saving screeings will be a vast cost savings. This is one of those ways the feds are going to "cut costs" so they can pay for their health-care reform. The cheapest treatment is no treatment and the candidate who said preventative medicine was the smartest medicine is presiding over a government which is turning its back on lifesaving cancer screening.
Because it's inconvenient.
This is what death panels do. They decide life and death. In this case, not specifically who will die, but that some will die. Some will die in order that others won't be inconvenienced. Some will die in order that health-care costs can be cut.
Let the rationing and the grave digging begin.
This is exactly why Barack Obama and the Democrats are not to be trusted with health care. This exactly why health-care decisions should involve patients and doctors, not beaurocrats or politicians.
But this isn't about politics, or whose side who is on. This is, plain and simple, about what is best for women's health. And there is no doubt that early screening is best for women's health. The government's task force may believe there is acceptable level of death, in exchange for convenience, but if the woman who passes away is your mother or your sweetheart -- or if it is you -- then every life is sacred and no needless death is tolerable. There are women who pray to live long enough to raise their children, or to spend another year in their career or with their husband, women for whom every day of life is precious and endangered -- and this policy says those women are, essentially, expendable.
Bull crap.
This is intolerable.
This is the rationed, death-list medicine of our darkest nightmares. This is the government run amuck.
This is between a woman and her doctor. And this is between the medical community and its patients. Experience, real doctors and the American Cancer Society all say that early mammograms and regular self-exams save lives.
So the question is: Who do you believe? The government, or everybody else.
Or, put another way: Do you know anyone who was diagnosed via mammogram before she turned 50? Do you know anyone who discovered her own tumor by self-exam?
Most of us answer "Yes" to those questions.
That means most of us know people who would have been killed by this policy.
This trial balloon is a big change from the court-tested policies of the past. Here, a well-accepted practice that catches a significant number of fatal cancers early is being attacked on a cost basis. But, in the courts, you have EPA approved policies on pollutant levels aimed at saving the 1 in a million case, and sometimes more than that. For example, I believe (someone with a more accurate memory can chime in here) the Alar spray used on apples had an estimated harm rate that was far below that, yet the hysteria over it was enough to get it pulled.
Statists must have constant turmoil and class hatred to succeed with the harm they intend to infict on the masses.
Will it work on the USA?
Would like to see cancer survivor Gloria Steinmen argue that women should skip mammograms until age 50 to save the govt money
or oooops, the”official” line: to “save themselves emotional distress over false positives and further testing that turns out benign”
As one 42 yr old cancer victim said last night- “Give women credit for being intelligent enough to choose possible distress over a false positive, over the chance of undetected breast cancer”
Just waiting for the AARP endorsement - after all, they fell in line with the Social Healthcare program, despite almost 70% of thier members rejecting it.
This story needs to be highlighted more. It is so outrageous and so clearly linked to govt. run healthcare and cost cutting schemes that will end up killing women.
I know until now a lot of emphasis has been placed on the “seniors” argument and rallying them against the cuts in Medicare.
An equally strong push needs to be made to America’s women (Obama’s last large constituency) A dangerous and irresponsible directive like could rally women and put the final nail into Obamacare.
I really am in shock. We have made such great strides in this country against breast cancer and to read such totally irresponsible political drivel (without any medical backup) is really sad and WILL end up needless killing a lot of women.
And males get the PSA test comments.
So, both you and the wife get to go down the tube at the same time, more or less.
go back and read the liberal hysteria in 2001 over Bush not accepting Clinton’s arsenic water standards signed the LAST day he was in office because they were so ridiculous
I think the “new” standard was 3 cancers a year
NO mammograms over age 74, I believe
but pain pills enough for all
Unreal.
My sweetie is a young widower, who has 4 young children. His late wife (and mother of all 4) passed away by age 30 of breast cancer.
Also, my best friend, the bridesmaid at my wedding, watched her 19 year old niece (someone I knew since she’d been in second grade) die of breast cancer before she was even old enough to have a drink, legally.
I hope there is a special place in hell for these bastards.
Gov’t only knows how to impose a one-size-fits-all policy that reduces coverage based on costs.
The private sector would look for ways to reduce the costs of the tests so coverage would be expanded to more people and breast cancer deaths would drop to near zero.
Will obama’ bitter half wait until age 50 to be screened for BC? mmm mmmm mmmm
This is what our first (ma)lady said 3 weeks ago to a BC group:
Remarks by First Lady Michelle obama, Oct 23, 2009
“....people like you, all of you here, started speaking out, including two of my predecessors, First Ladies Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan. They began speaking out.
Survivors and those who love them started organizing and advocating and lobbying for more money, for more research, and better treatment for this disease.
And then folks like Venus and Jill started working to educate and empower people to promote early detection and make sure that people were getting the care that they needed.
And today, because of that work, the number of women getting regular mammograms has dramatically increased, and the five-year survival rate when breast cancer is diagnosed in time is 98 percent — and that’s compared to 74 percent in the early 80s...”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-first-lady-honor-breast-cancer-awareness
any senior who is still in AARP is brain dead, sorry to say. Just as well lobotomies are not covered after age 60.
Giving women “credit for being intelligent enough” is anathema to liberalism(collectivism).
That ideology is centered in the idea of “elite/expert rule” in which panels of experts and elites make the decisions for the people, because the people aren’t smart enough to decide for themselves.
Where are the feminists groups over this outrage?
Where is the Susan B. Komen center commercials screaming about this? On their website they clearly argue for mammograms beginning at age 40 and leaving the decision on how often to have one between a woman and her doctor - not a 3rd party payer. Where is the outrage??
How many women will move from stage 1 breast cancer to stage 3 or 4 waiting to reach an age when the Gov approves we are allowed mammograms or in the two years between scans?
What a way to save money, assure people develop end stage cancers all in an effort to save money. Liberals should be proud.
Welcome to Rationing 101.
Well, I’m over 74, in fact l0 years over 74, and breast cancer was discovered in me almost two years ago, and I’m still here and healthy. I intend to get mammograms every year, just as I have always done.
another preview of government health control.
This kind of thinking is surely buried in the health control bill somewhere.
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